Introducing Workflow Management Services

The ArcGIS Workflow Manager product team is excited to announce that we are now a premium capability within ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes at the 12.1 release! The workflow management services capability provides the ability to orchestrate guided processes that can incorporate automation and third-party integrations across the organization. In this blog, we’ll go over some important information to be aware of if you’re considering either migrating an existing ArcGIS Enterprise Windows/Linux Workflow Manager server deployment or starting new in Kubernetes.

Background

ArcGIS Workflow Manager has been evolving over the years to provide organizations with the ability to incorporate centralized work management into their GIS environments. Over twenty years ago it was created as a desktop extension and was later rebuilt on the services architecture as a capability server in ArcGIS Enterprise. Later, we added support to federate a Workflow Manager server on Windows/Linux with ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes. And now, with the 12.1 release, there is full support for Workflow Manager on Kubernetes as a premium capability available within ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes.

Benefits

Using workflow management services on Kubernetes means you will receive the same great benefits that all users of Kubernetes do including:

• Improved scalability, resilience, and manageability of your GIS organization.
• Reduced administrative overhead in managing deployments and upgrades.

Licensing

To utilize this new capability, your Kubernetes organization will need to be licensed with the ArcGIS Workflow Manager Services on Kubernetes license. This is different than the existing ArcGIS Enterprise capability server licenses, but it does have all the advanced-level capabilities of Workflow Manager. For more information on what capabilities are included, check out our functionality comparison matrix.

Considerations

There are a few considerations for workflow management services on Kubernetes at 12.1:

• The Create Replica step is not supported, but it is on the roadmap for an upcoming release.
• If you are migrating from a federated Windows/Linux Workflow Manager server to workflow management services and you have existing encrypted user defined settings, you will need to re-populate those values after upgrade.
• If you’re an existing or new user and need to configure custom settings, these will be set using the REST API and not a separate configuration file.
• The current option to federate a Windows/Linux Workflow Manager server to ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes will still be supported.
• Regardless of the architecture profile chosen, workflow management services will deploy a single pod only. Support for multiple pods will be available at a later release.

Wrapping Up

Workflow management services as a premium capability in ArcGIS Enterprise on Kubernetes gives customers another way to orchestrate guided processes, incorporate automation, and connect third-party integrations in the deployment environment that best fits their organization. We’re excited to see how you use this capability and look forward to your feedback as you begin adopting workflow management services.